1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to using vast stores of data in an associative memory to enable analysts to rapidly analyze requests for proposal and also to develop responses to requests for proposal.
2. Background
Government agencies and some private companies will sometimes issue a request for proposal (RFP) when the organization in question decides to purchase goods or services. Broadly speaking, the request for proposal may describe the goals, requirements, desirables, restrictions, or other parameters set forth by the purchasing organization regarding the request for proposal. A vendor may respond to the request for proposal with one or more proposals to sell the requested goods or services at a particular cost or range of costs. Proposals also may outline a production plan, research plan, organizational details, response to requirements or attributes, and possibly many other factors. The purchasing organization may choose to accept one or more of the proposals, whereupon the purchasing organization may enter into contract negotiations and perhaps, ultimately, a contract with the vendor that supplied the winning proposal.
Requests for proposal may become very complex. In some cases, a request for proposal may span an entire product line for a complex product not yet developed, such as an aircraft with undeveloped capabilities. A request for proposal may span many years of work and may involve basic scientific research that is difficult to predict.
Requests for proposal may also be influenced by other documents often published by the same purchasing organization. For example, some government agencies may issue “broad agency announcements” (BAAs) that may outline the agency's goals and help prepare vendors to respond to an eventual request for proposal. Some requesting organizations may issue a request for a white paper, a short technical paper, and vendors may submit white papers responding to the request. A request for proposal may incorporate by reference broad agency announcements or white papers submitted, perhaps, by third parties. A request for proposal also may include, incorporated by reference, many other types of documents.
As a result, the complexity and the use of incorporation by reference could make any given request for proposal extensive, even if the document itself is short. However, requests for proposal may be long, complex documents with still other documents incorporated by reference. For this reason, requests for proposal may span thousands or even tens of thousands of pages of documents or more.
Because requests for proposal and incorporated documents are often in unstructured or “free text” form, using “text searches” or other search engines is often tedious and time consuming. Using such conventional keyword searches may require that an analyst read an undesirable amount of text. Useful information is then aggregated to determine the complete range of requirements, the greatest need or desire reflected in the request, effective approaches for addressing the needs or desires, and the relative probability for success of the available approaches. This process may take an undesirable amount of time and may require a significant degree of subject matter expertise to determine what information is relevant, what is truly most important to the issuing organization, and what information should be specifically responded-to in a proposal.
Further increasing the difficulty of preparing a proposal, the issuing organization may allow only a short time to prepare a response. As a result, especially when responding to complex requests for proposal, a vendor may draft a “shotgun-style” response detailing vendor capabilities rather than addressing specific requirements or attributes buried in the request for proposal. In other words, the response may have to be prepared more quickly than desired relative to the time needed to prepare a desired response, resulting in a proposal that may be considered undesirable by the vendor, the issuing organization, or both.
Quickly responding to an extensive set of documents in a precise and efficient manner may be difficult, or even impractical, and may involve many hours of labor by entire teams of subject matter experts and support personnel at great expense to the vendor. Given that any particular proposal may or may not be accepted by the requesting organization, vendors that wish to submit a response to a request for proposal may desire to produce the proposal efficiently as well as accurately and completely.